Conclusion

Conclusion

Estimating a site s concurrent usage is part art and science. Careful analysis of server activity that different user populations create must be performed to appreciate the common misconceptions associated with the term concurrent user. Nevertheless, site owners need to estimate their maximum site capacity hardware needs to be better prepared for extraordinary traffic spikes. The TCA is a scientific methodology for estimating Web application hardware capacity needs. It consists of five steps:

1. Creating a user profile

2. Stress testing to define transaction hardware resource costs

3. Calculating the hardware resource cost per user operation

4. Using the transaction costs to model Web application hardware resource needs

5. Verifying the TCA model is accurate

Using the TCA approach to better understand how varying Web application traffic affects hardware capacity needs allows you to make more informed hardware purchase decisions saving your company capital expenses.